Astronomer point the way for exoplanet search

(Phys.org)—Though the search for planets around other stars, or exoplanets, is showing researchers that planets are abundant in our galaxy, it helps a great deal to have directions when searching for as-of-yet undiscovered ...

WISE finds few brown dwarfs close to home

(Phys.org) -- Astronomers are getting to know the neighbors better. Our sun resides within a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy about two-thirds of the way out from the center. It lives in a fairly calm, suburb-like area ...

Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has a temperature ...

The earliest stages of planet formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Small dust particles in a disk of gas around a young star, according to current models, gradually coagulate during the first million years until kilometer-sized objects are formed. These in turn coalesce ...

Astronomers find bounty of failed stars

A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has discovered over two dozen new free-floating brown dwarfs, including a lightweight youngster only about six times heftier than Jupiter, that reside in two young star clusters. ...

A night with the stars…in a conference room

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ancient astronomers looked up at the dark skies in wonder, as the stars marched by overhead like precision dancers. In the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei brought the world one step closer to the heavens ...

Baby stars born to 'napping' parents

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cardiff University astronomers believe that a young star's long "napping" could trigger the formation of a second generation of smaller stars and planets orbiting around it.

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